Reading Half

When I sat down at the beginning of the year to plan my training for London I earmarked some races that offered a fast course, good field and the chance of a good time.

As my training has evolved for the race this year I started to reason that perhaps I should treat these races as almost training sessions en route to London. During previous marathon build ups I have been able to race to personal best performances only to fail to mirror these performances on the big day.

Lisbon in 2008 was a perfect example of this. My DNF in Amsterdam 2005 was exactly the same. I was in awesome shape for both these marathons, but other factors disrupted the ultimate performance, which was a personal best effort in the marathon.

Following the previous weeks Trafford 10k performance, which was disappointing but I accepted it in the bigger scheme of things (comment from Dave Norman to me after the race "it's all about London" or words to that effect - you can't expect a cracking 10k time during this phase of a marathon build up "Look at Andi Jones" he'd said) I was keen on a very solid effort at Reading, and felt low 68 - maybe just under, was likely.

However, my week hadn't gone great, and was a typical week in a marathon build up. I ran 22 miles the day after Trafford and felt great, but this lead me into a few days of feeling jaded. I opted for a 12 x 1 min fartlek session as part of a 10.5 mile hilly run in midweek over a specific session to keep myself from getting too tired, but on my second run on Thursday I was finding it harder than I should have to run 6.15 pace and saw this as a sign so decided on a day off on Friday - my first for weeks and weeks.


I felt better on a six miler on Saturday so was upbeat for Reading and started to fancy my chances of an encouraging run. I raced Reading in 2008 and my memory was that it was a quick course, a few hills but a very quick finish.

Reading 2011 was a fairly loaded field of Kenyans and top domestic boys. My Bedford team mate Neilson Hall was making his half marathon debut, along with a host of other top Brits - Wicks, Webb, Robinson, Tickner, Pepper.

I was sure to set off steadily as a decent field could draw me through the mile too quick and this thankfully didn't happen. I was feeling ok, nothing special, I wasn't flying along but was clipping off decent splits - albeit unreliable in the absence of my GPS (note to self - wear this in London).

At five miles I was established in a group with two guys from Highgate and the three of us worked together. I made an effort to relax and went through 10k in just under 32 minutes - noticing that the course was a fair bit more undulating than I recalled from 2008.

I worked through the miles with the Highgate boys without ever feeling like I was really shifting, or slowing. I was just locked into a monotonous pace, totally devoid of another gear to slip into. My legs felt a bit more wobbly than I'd have liked at times, but I was running fairly strongly and certainly not slowing. Solid but unspectacular is how I'd describe things.

I dropped both the Highgate runners in the final mile - one of them by only a few seconds, but nonetheless suggests I finished well, but the time of 69:12 was a disappointment. I felt absolutely knackered warming down and for the rest of the day.

As the day went on I started to appreciate the run a bit more and wasn't too disappointed with it - I have to see it for what it is. Fact is I am very focused on London now and my training has really been geared to that end. If I was looking to run a fast half marathon would I have run 22 miles just six days previous? Of course I wouldn't have.

So with four weeks to go I feel in a good place. I've had to tweak things only very slightly in the last couple of weeks (I did 83 miles last week and I had planned more, but had to have that day off to get my legs back).

The plan this week is to train normally through to the Oakley 20 on Sunday 27th, which is on a testing course starting just a mile from my house. I'd like to do that at 5.30 pace, which is slightly slower than my anticipated marathon pace, but with the hilly course and miles in my legs something in that region would suffice.

Another week on the Roller Coaster

Another week on the roller coaster of marathon training done, with an outing in the Trafford 10k to break up the relentless training.

The week had been going well and in midweek before the race I repeated my 8 x 870m reps (off 1 min) around Russell Park in Bedford. I meant to start them fairly steady as I wanted to race reasonably well on the Sunday, and also I had been feeling jaded from the 24 miles on the Sunday beforehand.

I managed a set on par with the week before, which was very positive. I ran my quickest effort at the end, but this wasn't by choice. On the penultimate effort I noticed a group of annoying teenagers at the edge of the park, and sensed they were going to give me problems.

As I was nearing the end of the session this didn't concern me too much, so as I sped past on the last effort, one of these idiots jumped in and ran alongside me for maybe 150 metres before bailing out to the amusement of his mates and the girls he was trying to impress.

As he joined me I had a total 'fight or flight' response and took off as the adrenaline pumped through me. Having done a set in the 2:34-2:38 region, I nailed this last effort in 2:31 - which I was pissed off about as I compromised my training plan for this complete and utter buffoon.

Otherwise the week was solid. I backed off a little on Saturday to give myself a chance of a decent run at Trafford, before tackling 22 miles the day after the race. Also, my foot had been slightly sore as the week wore on and I was keen not to push it too much as I knew I'd be lacing up some racing flats at Trafford, which always tests my foot.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed with my run at a drizzly Trafford as I feel in much better shape than my time of 31:54 suggests. However, I was quickly able to put this performance into perspective. Firstly, I've barely run any 10k races of late and as Trafford is a top quality field, I got dragged through the opening mile far faster than I'd have liked. The GPS told me 4:47 for mile one, so much too fast. The next was 5:01 and then I fell away quickly. I've been running for years but am clearly still able to make rookie mistakes.

I've been at marathon mileage now for weeks and any speed I own has been blunted somewhat by the miles. I'm sure you can't expect top 10k times on 36 year old legs that have been doing 100+ miles per week for weeks and well over 20 miles every Sunday.

My seven days including the 22 miles totalled 97 miles and included the session and the Trafford 10k, so I'm well pleased with five weeks until London. I feel strong and am enjoying my training.

I could not help but be impressed with Trafford. A fast rural course with a superb field (I was 29th) laid on by Dave Norman, who does everything to ensure quality up front. An excellent event and now a firm favourite on the race calendar.

Next up this week is the Reading Half this coming weekend, which I hope to have a solid run in. When I've done PBs en route to marathons in the past I've gone on to run disappointing marathons. I'm not planning on backing off too much for Reading but will certainly ease off on Friday and Saturday to give myself a good chance of a decent run to take me into the final weeks before the big one.

All good books

Like most serious runners I know, I've become a bit of a running historian/scholar of my sport over the years, having read time and time again the works of Hill, Foster, Moorcroft, De Castella, Shorter et al.

The great thing about these books, despite being impossible to put down even on the eighth time of reading, is that you can relate so much to the challenges, problems, injury, successes of the subjects, because every week in training you're bound to experience similar time and again.

In the pages of Ron Hill you can read of the awesome runs over the marathon in 1970, and then the over-training for Fukuoka 1971 and the battle to keep his head going into the Munich Olympics in 1972, where the reader senses the weight of the occasion playing on Ron's mental well being.

Good books have been scarce in recent years but in 2009 Charlie Spedding self published his autobiography, and it is a gem.

This week I read it for the third time, because it isn't the longest book ever, but everything in there is absorbing and relevant. At a point in his career Spedding confronts himself with a series of questions to discover just what he wanted from the sport and how much he wanted it.

Clearly an extremely intelligent man, Spedding was able to change his entire thought process and even vocabulary so that he could view his achievements in a different context. Descriptive words like 'hard' - which suggests one can push harder still, were replaced with 'perfect' - because a perfect session of reps for example, cannot be more perfect than 'perfect'.

I won't spoil the book if you haven't read it (and I suggest you should) but it leads Charlie to excel in the races that really mean something to him, and most notably these were the London Marathon of 1984 (Olympic selection race for Charlie) and the Olympics of 1984 where despite the quality of the field, he claimed bronze by taking the race by the scruff of the neck and earning himself a medal.

Reading this was extremely inspiring and made me question how I view my own running.

With London less than six weeks away I have now managed to string together four consecutive weeks at an average of over 100 miles per week and I feel extremely good operating at this volume.

Previously when I've gone up to 100 miles a week I start to feel weak and it seems that, rather than making me stronger it's breaking me down. I don't feel like that this time, I did slightly over 108 last week and within that were some very 'perfect' runs as far as I am concerned. It was an extremely enjoyable weeks training and one I felt is leading me very much in the right direction for an attempt at my marathon pb on April 17th.

M - 11.5 miles easy (11.5)
T - am 6.4 miles in 41 mins, pm [5.5 miles warming up/down] 8 x 870m 'Russell Park' reps off 1 min recovery - consistent and up with my best round this park in 10 years of doing these efforts - 2:36, 2:35, 2:35. 2:35, 2:35, 2:35, 2:35, 2:34 - equivalent of 2:58 for 1km (16.5)
W - am 6.4 miles easy, pm 6.4 miles steady (12.8)
T - am 5.1 miles easy, pm 10 miles brisk and finishing strongly at <5:25 pace (15.1)
F - am 6.4 miles easy, pm 8.3 miles steady at 6:10 pace which felt extremely easy (14.7)
S - am 8.9 miles inc 10 x 1 min/1min fartlek. Very enjoyable, pm 5.3 miles easy after Arsenal game (14.2)
S - 24.25 miles with Matt Janes at 6:45 pace - felt good (24.25)

108.5 miles for the week